A few days ago, at the start of GDC in San Francisco, Microsoft openly invited other console manufacturers to participate in its cross-platform gaming strategy; that's Sony with its PlayStation 4, to you and us.

It is already planning on offering PC and Xbox One Rocket League players to compete against each other online, no matter the platform, and other games will follow in the same vein.

The fact that its statement suggested PS4 players could also get in on the cross-platform action excited many.

However, it seems that it won't be anytime soon. if at all.

Even though there are few technical barriers to such a move, Sony has illustrated several other factors that could prevent such multiplayer, online harmony.

Sony Worldwide Studios boss, Shuhei Yoshida, told Eurogamer at GDC 2016 that cross-platform play could be blocked by "policy issues and business issues". Essentially, it's not necessarily in Sony's best interests to allow Xbox One and PS4 owners to play together.

Cross-platform play has been adopted by some PS4 games, with the aforementioned Rocket League and Street Fighter 5 both having multiplayer match-ups across the console and PC. And Yoshida said that it is "nothing new for us" to work with developers and publishers to allow cross-platform play.

But opening that to Xbox One is another kettle of fish entirely: "Because PC is an open platform it's much more straightforward," the Sony executive said. "Connecting two different closed networks is much more complicated so we have to work with developers and publishers to understand what it is they are trying to accomplish.

"We also have to look at the technical aspect - and the technical aspect could be the easiest. We also have to look at policy issues and business issues as well."

It is the latter two factors that could prove to be the nail in the coffin for the concept.